


Lost

by Mochapup12



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Lesbians in Space, also it's a shitty first draft so feedback is welcome, space, that's basically the entire premise here tbh, this is literally just a dumb little thing I wrote for class, to see if I could actually do sci-fi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 14:09:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8105398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mochapup12/pseuds/Mochapup12
Summary: Communications officer Nyssa Amathea hates fighter pilot Captain Arielle Khan.  At least, she wants to.  Okay, so maybe it's not so much hate as it is a desperate, unrelenting crush that refuses to go away.  It should be a battle like any other - there have been far too many lately, they're all blurring together - except that the captain's impulsiveness has a habit of ruining everything.





	

The night that everything went to hell, Nyssa Amathea was woken suddenly from the first decent sleep she’d had for days by a frantic pounding on the door and her assistant Mikel’s panicked voice.

“Miss Amathea! Please, you have to come to the bridge right now, there are enemy ships approaching and it looks like we’re in for another fight!” It spoke volumes about the way that their current exploration mission was going that rather than jumping immediately to her feet and racing for the door, Nyssa groaned and mumbled “Again?” while rubbing at her bleary green eyes.

“Miss, please! They need you, they’re sending out squadron twelve with Captain Khan at the head, and we need all the minds we can get working on strategies!” At this, Nyssa sat up abruptly.

“Captain Khan? Why would they do that? She’s a wild card, she could ruin everything!” Nyssa was already stumbling out of bed and snatching her coat from the chair as Mikel responded.

“They want to put an end to this! Captain Khan has the best record of anyone in the force.” With an impatient sigh, Nyssa tapped her code into the control panel by the solid steel door to her standard-issue officer’s quarters. The door sprang aside at once to reveal Mikel, a young man who seemed perpetually disheveled and distressed. His round face still held traces of childhood at just over eighteen years old.

“Yes, I know that, but she also doesn’t know when to quit! She’d face down an Elviren by herself if they’d let her!” The door closed automatically behind her as she strode off down the hallway, Mikel following her anxiously.

The bridge wasn’t far from the officer’s quarters, but it seemed to take far too long to get there. Nyssa could already feel her anxiety rising; she played a much more central role in commanding things like this now that she’d been promoted, and she’d been through only a few fights so far. Mikel filled her in on the details as they walked. It was shaping up to be a much more serious battle than what she’d thought.

Finally, they made it through the archway at the end of the main corridor, emerging into a massive room with a soaring metal ceiling and massive reinforced windows across which screens flickered constantly. Pilots were rushing to the docking bay doors, engineers and maintenance workers alike close behind them while those remaining behind settled themselves behind the screens or up at the main control deck. This was Nyssa’s goal, and she was just about run up the steps to the raised platform in the center of the room when she caught sight of a familiar head of dark curls pushing through the crowd towards her. She barely had time to feel a flash of irritation and slight stutter in her heartbeat before Captain Arielle Khan was right in front of her.

Captain Khan was an enigma. She was one of the youngest to be promoted to such a position in decades and she was trusted with some of the most dangerous and classified missions that had ever been done. She was a talented pilot, smart as hell, and beautiful to boot - long, glossy dark hair and smooth brown skin, and intense dark eyes that made Nyssa both uncomfortable and weak at the knees. She was also arrogant, narcissistic, and had exactly zero sense of self-preservation. Nyssa told herself that those negative qualities were the reason that the captain irritated her to no end, but she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that maybe it wasn’t - and of course, that only irritated her more.

For a moment, they simply stood and stared at one another while an infuriating smirk grew on the captain’s face. When the silence became too much, Nyssa broke it with a short, clipped word.

“Captain.” Khan actually had the gall to laugh before replying in a low, smooth voice.

“Nyssa dear, are you going to be my eyes for this one? Oh, I feel safer already.”

“Do you now.” 

Mikel stood nervously off to one side, watching the two interact with the expression of someone watching two grenades with missing pins and waiting to see which one exploded first. Nyssa could feel color rising in her cheeks because the captain’s face was entirely too close and how could she look so good but be so annoying at the exact same time -

Her train of thought was cut off by Khan chuckling and leaning back to give her a bit of breathing room and the sudden effort it took to not be disappointed by that.

“How many times do I have to tell you, honey, call me Arielle. No need for formal titles here.” Nyssa’s voice was cold and thankfully didn’t shake as she replied with,

“I save first name basis for my friends. I believe I’ll be sticking with Captain Khan for now, if you don’t mind.” At this, Khan laughed again.

“Okay, okay, I see. Not interested in being friends. That does leave open some interesting possibilities, though…” And with that she leaned in so that she was mere inches from Nyssa, her breath ghosting over the commander’s lips. “So how about a kiss for good luck?”

It took Nyssa all of a second and a half to actually process what she’d said, at which point she stumbled backwards in sudden alarm and indignation, heat flaring in her face as she stared open mouthed at the pilot, who just stood there and grinned at her with a hand on her hip.

“See, I knew I could get to you somehow. See you on the battlefield, chief!” She waved cheerily as she walked away, tying up her hair and buckling on her helmet. For several seconds, Nyssa didn’t move. Finally Mikel asked,

“Um, Miss Amathea? Are… are you okay?” She took a quick, shaky breath and shook her head briefly before answering.

“Yes, yes I’m fine. Really, I am, let me just…” She trailed off into vague muttering and started up the steps past her assistant, cheeks still hot as she mumbled something about _there aren’t even any battlefields, it’s space. ___

__When she reached her place among the other commanders, she staunchly ignored the looks and whispers from the others. It wasn’t a particularly large ship, so gossip traveled fast; she was sure that rumors would be flying all over the ship by tomorrow._ _

__“What are we looking at here?” She asked, turning her gaze up to the main screen right above them. A senior officer explained to her that enemy ships had been detected on the radar heading right for them about a half an hour before. They were expected to be within range to come out of hyperspace within ten minutes, and there looked to be half a fleet or more. The squadron led by Captain Khan had been reinforced with pilots from other sectors, and she was ultimately going to be leading a group of twenty-four fighters. Nyssa had been placed in charge of communications for this particular battle. Which, of course, meant that she’d be talking to Captain Khan over over the comm._ _

__When she enabled the link and tested the connection, Khan’s voice was quick to come back to her._ _

__“Nyssa! My, getting a bit clingy today, aren’t we?” Nyssa took a deep breath and willed herself not to respond._ _

__“Captain, is your team in order?”_ _

__“Ready to go, sweetheart, just say the word.” Nyssa sighed, then gave the order to take off._ _

__The battle itself was much less remarkable than she’d thought it would be. Despite the size and quantity of the ships, they didn’t seem to have great attacking capabilities. Captain Khan and her team were working together beautifully, and Khan had even stopped pestering Nyssa, instead encouraging her team and yelling out orders. Everything was cohesive and smooth until Khan’s voice crackled over the comm again, this time directed at Nyssa._ _

__“We’ve got them on the run, I’m gonna chase them off. That’ll send them a message! The rest of Squadron 12, return to docking bay!” Nyssa started to say no, wait, that’s not a good idea, but her voice was drowned out by the other pilots agreeing and wishing their captain luck. This was not a part of the plan, it was entirely too dangerous, the captain was going to get herself killed -_ _

__“Captain Khan, I advise you to return to the docking bay immediately. We still don’t know what these ships are capable of and without backup, if anything happens, we lose you.” Nyssa could almost hear the smirk in the captain’s voice when she answered._ _

__“Worried? How sweet. But who’s the pilot here, sweetheart, me or you?” Taken aback, Nyssa gave no answer, and sat in shock as Khan laughed, said “That’s what I thought,” and switched off her comm._ _

__Nyssa could never quite say when she realized that things had gone horribly wrong, nor could she describe how it felt. By the time it happened, the captain was so far away in pursuit of the enemy ships that when the comm came back online, it was faint and mostly static._ _

__“Nyssa, hon, I think I owe you an apology. You may have been right about just letting this go.”_ _

__“Captain, what’s wrong?”_ _

__“I’ve been hit; there’s critical damage and I can’t get anywhere. And - and they have a tractor beam.”_ _

__“They’re taking you?!”_ _

__“‘Fraid so. Don’t sound so worried, you know I’ll find a way out of this, I always do. Just wanted to tell you that maybe you were right for once. Sorry. I’ll see you soon, I promise.” The comm began to break up into static and Nyssa practically yelled into it, frantic,_ _

__“Wait, Arielle, please-” But the sound cut out abruptly, and there was no longer even static to reassure her that there was still someone out there on the other end. Captain Arielle Khan was lost._ _

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I don't know how many people will actually read this since it's not actually fandom-related, but it's a thing that exists and it's here so if you like lesbians and space, go ahead and read it. There was originally going to be a part 2 to this (actually, it was just going to be a longer story but that's neither here nor there) so if enough people want the rest of this, I'll write it up and post it. A quick update about everything else: I don't know how many people are still expecting me to continue RenegadeTale, but it's probably not going to happen. If enough people want more, I might condense what I had planned for it originally down into one chapter just to get an ending out there, but I really wasn't planning on finishing it; I've kind of fallen out of the fandom if I'm being honest. Let me know what you think about this, and about RT, and we'll see what happens. Thanks!


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